The use of laminated structural panels of various compositions for facades, housings, flooring, roofing, ceilings and interior and exterior walls in industrial, commercial and other architectural projects is widespread. The versatility of these laminates, which exhibit high rigidity-to-weight properties, as well as excellent insulating and sound damping characteristics, has appeal with architects and engineers in a multitude of applications.
Such projects typically call for a series of structural laminated panels to be assembled as a housing or fastened to metal, masonry, wood, or other substrate or supporting structure as a facade or wall. The joint seams between adjacent laminated panels are often required to be sealed against environmental encroachment (i.e., water, wind, dust, heat, cold, fumes). In most instances this is accomplished by applying a wide layer of caulking material such as latex, butyrate, or silicone along the panel edges, or by sealing the edges with similar material into variously shaped channels which conceal the joint seams. Neither method is aesthetically satisfactory, and both are subject to imperfection when voids appear along the caulk line, permitting water incursion or other invasion during the service life of the joints. One of the principal advantages of the present invention is that it makes the use of caulking at the joints between adjacent panels unnecessary.
Assembling or fastening adjoining panels to produce perfect three dimensional alignment over modular framing or other substrates, which are usually of themselves not perfectly aligned, is a difficult, time-consuming and costly procedure. A wide variety of materials, components, and techniques are available to aid in assembly or installation of the end product. The vast majority of these aids add significantly to product costs either in materials, labor, or both. Many architectural projects require contractor specialists to achieve a satisfactory installation. In many situations, the use of formed channel or added subframing to conceal through-fasteners or joint seams is counter productive to performance or eye appeal of the end product.
Edge fasteners of various sorts have been employed for attaching adjacent building panels to
each other and to vertical support members since at least as long ago as U.S. Pat. No. 765,930, which was issued to Mahony in 1904. Many other fastener devices such as those referred to in the immediately preceding paragraph have been employed in the intervening years, but so far as applicant is aware no one has ever devised an edge fastener that is similar in structure or performance to the edge fastener for caulkless jointed panels of the present invention.